Christie lashes out at Wildstein

Chris Christie has gone on the offensive against David Wildstein, the former Port Authority official who personally oversaw the lane closings on the George Washington Bridge that now threaten to ruin Christie’s political career. Wildstein’s lawyer has claimed that “evidence exists … tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the Governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference.”

In response, Christie’s office has sent out an email attacking Wildstein. The email says that “in David Wildstein’s past, people and newspaper accounts have described him as ‘tumultuous’ and someone who ‘made moves that were not productive.’” It goes on to state that “Wildstein has been publicly asking for immunity since the beginning, been held in contempt by the New Jersey legislature for refusing to testify, failed to provide this so-called ‘evidence’ when he was first subpoenaed by the NJ Legislature and is looking for the Port Authority to pay his legal bills.”

The email even goes so far as to allege that during his student days, Wildstein “was publicly accused by his high school social studies teacher of deceptive behavior.” Worse than that, perhaps, Team Christie notes that Wildstein was “an anonymous blogger known as Wally Edge.” And “he had a strange habit of registering web addresses for other people’s names without telling them.”

But who appointed this strange, tumultuous, non-productive, deceptive guy to his post at the Port Authority? Why, it was Chris Christie, who knew Wildstein in high school.

As for where things stand on the merits given Wildstein’s accusations and Christie’s denials, I found this piece from NJ.com helpful.

UPDATE: Christie and Wildstein participated on the same high school baseball team. Christie was a catcher; Wildstein a statistician. The Washington Post ran a story today about Christie’s involvement with the baseball team.